Rex Smith: My pal will still read a newspaper

On the first day of the new year, a friend who used to work in newspapers dropped by. As we talked by the fireplace with appropriate beverages in hand, he mentioned a prediction he had read online suggesting that The New York Times would stop publishing this year. And if that’s true, he seemed to wonder, what kind of 2009 could the Times Union have?

I reassured him that he would have the Times Union to kick around for a long time, but I should have said more — aside from reminding him not to believe everything he reads (except, of course, in this column).

Yes, our industry’s leading trade magazine did suggest that “2008 could go down as the worst year for newspapers.” And some 21,000 newspaper jobs disappeared last year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Stocks in publicly traded newspaper companies tumbled, some losing 90 percent of their value. A few newspapers switched from print distribution to a Web-only model.

But we’re not the only industry troubled by a changing marketplace and the global economic ruin. I’d rather be running a newsroom than, say, an auto showroom or a record store. I’m confident consumers will need our product, news and information, both throughout and after this recession. The task for newspaper leaders is to adapt smartly to an unarguably difficult environment.

Fact is, we’re still at the dawn of the Internet Age, so disruptions in communications industries, in particular, shouldn’t surprise us. We just need to become more comfortable with change as we pick our way through the early light.

At this paper, we’re in the middle of a week of specific change Our Sunday paper will feature a bold new section, Unwind, replacing three feature sections that have long been in our portfolio. We have dropped some features, including the daily TV listings, and moved some others: a condensed weather package, for example, now appears on page A2, instead of inside the Capital Region section.

Some of these changes, frankly, are pushed upon us by economics: The skyrocketing cost of newsprint means we simply can’t afford to publish as many pages each week if we want to adhere to our core mission, which is providing the news and information about our community that you want and need.

But in each case, we’re making the changes after weighing thoughtfully what readers have told us is most important to them and what they can find somewhere else. For example, readers lamenting the loss of the TV grid can find a more complete package in our Sunday OnTV section; our daily weather package focuses on statistics you’re unlikely to find elsewhere, but we have dropped the national map since you’re apt to go to timesunion.com or to TV for an up-to-date prediction with cool graphics.

What you’ve told us matters most to you is our consistently dependable reporting on the news of the Capital Region and New York, including watchdog work — journalism that you generally won’t find elsewhere. To preserve that in these challenging times, we have to squeeze elsewhere.

So the papers of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will be smaller, with no stand-alone feature sections. Most of that content will migrate to other sections and different days of the week, but we are achieving savings by cutting out some features. That’s one strategy we’re using to enable us to avoid the repeating rounds of layoffs and buyouts that have decimated some newsrooms.

Anybody who doubts how communities feel about their newspapers should check the response when big news happens, such as the historic election of Barack Obama. This newspaper sold out almost everywhere that day. USA Today, the nation’s largest paper, printed 500,000 extra copies; others did reprints and extra editions. We expect similar sales around Inauguration Day. I can’t help but point out that few people save video of TV news broadcasts or Web pages.

Yes, newspapering is changing. But we’re adapting so we can continue to serve you well. My prediction is my hope: A year from now, when my friend and I raise a glass by the fireplace, we will say we handled these challenging days well.

Rex Smith is editor of the Times Union. Share your thoughts at http://blogs.timesunion.com/editors.

Rex Smith

24 Responses

I suspect he may have read my post regarding the future of the NYT.
As most know the NYT has recently refinanced some property it owns in NYC and is selling ownership in the Boston Red Sox. The story on CNN was from a financial source and listed the NYT as one of 10 most likely companies to be gone by the end of 2009 along with Rite Aide, AIG,and a host of others. The story did say the paper would remain but owned by a different company.

It wasn’t that long ago, 2002 I believe, that NYT stock actually traded for $50 a share. By many folks’ reckoning, the mid to late nineties were good years in newspapering, and what with those stupendously bountiful news cycles at the start of the century, well, press owners kicked the can on down the road.

Making matters worse for itself, the Times Company probably did what everyone else did and overspent for real estate that will prove to be its undoing. I recently read that about half of the company’s $1.5bn market capitalization is its stake in its new digs on Eighth Ave. I would call that a fine pickle — “be careful what you wish for,” and all that.

Nevertheless, I don’t share the gloomy outlook concealed behind your forced optimism, Rex, because I think journalism is set to survive the demise of newspapering, though one should bear in mind that the misfortunes of corporate news gathering predate the current financial chaos. Or, since the current troubles are about value where there was none, maybe I should be saying “anticipated.”

It might also be useful to remember how recently you used to argue on behalf of the greater reliability of print information versus the internet, insisting repeatedly on your radio program that it’s the “filter” your medium provides which makes it indispensable. (Though I won’t for a minute argue that there isn’t a preponderance of sheer crud on line, it’s such rich, resplendently unfiltered crud, but there’s more online that’s valid and useful than the planet’s newspapers could print if the oceans were forests and the rivers ran ink.) Anyway, more recently — in this venue, often as not — you keened for the hallowed sanctity of the “printed word.”

Much as I hate to break this to you, I rate the value of words very, very highly, just don’t feel I need to own a printing press in order to do so, least of all make mine more valuable. Among the internet’s chief benefits is the user’s ability to reject your “filter,” and with that to undermine the value to media owners of their content while retaining it’s usefulness to the regular surfer. That’s pretty much what ate the media business model. Presto. Change-o.

Yes, as a printing enterprise, there may be some future in commemorative editions, which could eventually rival the profits accruing to manufacturers of bobble heads, but what kind of future is that, riding the public’s appetite for souveniers and yesterday’s news?

It wasn’t the Judith Millers and Jason Blairs, alone, that carjacked big brand authority, but now that media value has collapsed into near oblivion, maybe we’ll see real journalists enterprise on their own. Could be shaky and uncertain, but that way lies a brighter future, I’m reasonably sure. It could get icky, though, for editors and such, cause they’ll have to choose which side they’re on and stuff, then live by their wits like reporters, maybe even the rubes that populate the stories they used to run.

I recently cancelled my subscription to your paper. My wife makes me buy it on Sundays so I reluctantly go to Stewarts and buy it.
In case your interested, the reason I cancelled the paper is because there is hardly any news left in it. It is mostly opinion pieces. Have you ever considered strictly doing news and leaving the opinions to the internet? I wonder if that would help newspapers gain an edge. I think the one thing you have going for you is that you are not anoynomous and therefore could be able to be trusted if you fairly presented the news. Unfortunately you do not do that – see coverage of Obama, the Albany Catholic Church, the War in Iraq, etc. etc.
If I could just open your newspaper and be able to read the news without wondering what bias you are pushing I would buy it.
Justa Thought

But what’s up with the phone calls from the TU, saying they’re going to be ‘dropping some newspapers off for us to look at and consider a subscription” ? They never drop them off (They’ve called my place of employment, so they must know the address) — the calls are so annoying that I am more likely to NOT purchase a paper, let alone subscribe.

Maybe the demise is due to the lack of truth, integity and in the papers lack of responsiveness to the local readers wants and needs!

For instance, a recent on line poll shows that 98% of the readers do not want Caroline Kennedy as their representative, but the local paper is pushing her like the next queen and just gushing over her and covering up her lack of creditentials that would barely qualify her to work at Walmart except for her name and gifted jobs that the queen has be given because of the family name..Same with Obama.

Just a short time ago we read the accolades and gushing heaps of praise on a retiring politician by your paper meanwhile the FBI was hot on his trail and I would suggest you paper was aware of that fact but ignored it in order to curry favor. He should have been shown for what he actually was and denounced publically as a lesson to others who violate the public trust…..

During the recent storm their were six people who died due to storm related issues and lack of power, you bascially published apology stories for the power company instead of calling for a correction to their policies of hanging line from artificial trees which for over 100 years have been coming down and causing people to die..

The list goes on and on,and on and on and on.. Your just a news and propaganda service for the powers that be and those who advertise in your paper. You could care less about the wants and needs of your subscribers and as a result of it you lose customers and then blame it on the Internet and anything else the deceitful marketing maggots can come up with instead of the truth…. You spoke of the Old days, well after recently reading a story on the young Mr. Hearst he would have puked and probably fired all the current Editiors and staff.. He was brave, had guts, and wrote the truth no matter who it was about,,, and here we have Editiors apparently more concerned about grooming friends and favors amongst the so called Elite and those in political power than they are protecting the public from the theives, liars and crooks and other assorted riff raft who have a bit of power…

May I suggest you read the recent article by Igor Panarin regarding his prediction of the end of the U.S… People are getting very tired of corrupt and inept polticians whose idea of balancing the budget is to raise taxes. Millions who lost their life savings in the recent melt down are sick of the lack of Poltical Oversight that was supposed to be in place and want to impeach all those who were responsible but the press covers for them….Millions of people are getting extremely tired of supporting the non-producers and the Goverment and it’s leaders who encourages their way of life to buy votes. People are getting fed up of being ENSLAVED to the Public Employee Unions by their elected leaders and with the upcoming administration planning to add private enslavement as well by their choice of Labor Secratary,, people are getting tired of electing representatives who are told to sit down and shut up and due what their told, upon arrival at the State or Federal Captiol and are blocked from making progress by their senior leaders. People are sick of Government run by lobbyists or whom ever has the most money to donate to someones campaign..Or the Courts overiding the will and the vote of the people and no longer protecting them from Poltiical corruption but being part of the process.. People are tired of “take away laws” put forth by Special Interest groups who donate thousands to finance someone’s campaigns and are tired of those same “Special Interest” groups trying to run the Country..

So the question would be,,, does you paper speak for the people? The answer is, of course not, but your marketing maggots will tell you the reason you are losing customers is because of the Internet taking away all your customers, but why? Because the reader can pick and choose the stories they want to read, especially the ones you do not see in the Times Union.

So yes, please follow the way of the Ostrich it is so much easier that way.. and blame it on everything else but the truth, but isn’t that what you do anyway??

After getting your paper for the past 15 years I finally cancelled in 2008. I simply could no longer stand how you slanted the news to a liberal point of view. The final straw for me was when you sided with Elliot Spitzer on his push for give drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants – a simply amazing endorsement that simply ignores what being a US Citizen means and fails to ignore that illegal immigrants are breaking the law. Anyway – when you stop with the liberal slants and liberal twists to every news story – I would be more than willing to subscribe once more – but I doubt that will be any time soon.

For me it was Soares Soares Soares Soares, with the TU being used for all the photo ops, all the publicity he can get, and never holding him accountable, falsely saying everything is just a political shot at him.

It looks like you’ve done away with the “regional” editions. Here in Troy we used to get the Rensselaer County edition. Now the paper is generic. What’s more, in all of today’s paper, not a single story in the entire paper with a Rensselaer County dateline. If there’s a good reason why I should read the TU for Rensco news, please let me know, because I can’t think of one.From Monica: You’re right – the zoned editions have been eliminated from Tuesday’s paper. But any live county news should be in all editions that day. The Capital Region is still zoned by county (Schenectady, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Albany) Wednesday through Friday.

This print edition is nothing more than a picture book with bigger, bolder font and double spacing to fill the pages. Increased space has been given to “People in the News” which amounts to celebrity gossip, and Community Calendar so we know where the next all you can eat breakfast will be held…and you’re excited about those changes. The Times Union has become a mess (I concur with all above comments as well). I will be canceling my subscription.

Monica, I appreciate the reply. But what about the lack of news in the paper?

One more thing: I see many other people posting on this blog claim to be canceling their subscriptions. If you want to hang on to the subscription base you have, you could try sweetening the pot a bit to entice us to stick around. Specifically, how about the following:

for subscribers, can the TU send/post/email an itemized bill? I see only a charge on my credit card everyone so often—there is no indication of what time period I have paid for.

How about opening access to the archives for subscribers? I pay a lot for a subscription, but if I want to read an old story, I get hit up for charge. I understand charging for access to the archives, but even for those of us paying “full-freight” subscriptions?

I think these two changes would make the TU more user friendly. What’s more, many other “reputable” papers already offer these to their subscribers. I hope the TU will consider making it a little more worth our while to subscribe instead of diluting the product and doing nothing more than asking for our understanding and patience.

From Monica: What people say and what they do are different things. There’s plenty of local news in the paper. Please call Circulation at (518) 454-5454 if you have questions on your bill. Regarding your archives question – that fee was dropped months ago. Our online archives are free and open to anyone who wants to view them.

You’re missing the point. The TU does not give straight unbiased points of view. It can be expected that most news sources tilt the news a certain direction but the TU is quite extreme in my opinion. Sort of like Rush Limbaugh. When I read a story – let me make up my own mind – I don’t need them telling me Joe Bruno should be investigated for Trooper Gate of why every illegal immigrant entering this country should be granted a drivers license.

I have to wonder also. Many major online news organizations (i.e USA Today.com) and even local news organizations (TroyRecord.com) are letting online readers comment ON EVERY NEWS STORY published online. You simply can comment, your thoughts, right under a news story. An excellent thing to do! I notice the TU online has been reluctant to give readers that privilege to express their view point and does/will not offer that feature. I believe if they did –they would quickly see that most readers would disagree strongly with how the TU portrays a story or the TU’s viewpoint. I know that they would have quickly seen this when they were siding with Elliot Spitzer on giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. I have to wonder if the reason they don’t let readers comment on a story online is because they don’t want it evident how wrong they are on some issues.

From Monica: We do not currently have the technology on timesunion.com to allow commenting on individual stories but are planning to obtain that technology in 2009. Comments are often solicited on the top news stories in our Read & React blog, but certainly not every story. All reporters can be contacted via e-mail (click on their bylines online) and their phone numbers are listed on longer stories. We welcome letters to the editor (tuletters@timesunion.com) for those who choose not to be anonymous.

While it is true readers can write an email to an editor , or phone I guess (not sure why anyone would want to phone in an opinion) or wait a few days for a discussion to “possibly” appear in your blogs – it is just not the same as allowing a reader to immediately comment when reading a story. It is very very powerful to be able to express an opinion about recent major local news stories right after reading it and to also get a flavor for what other local readers are thinking. Readers do not want to go clicking thru various blog sites to hope they can possibly find a blog that touched on the subject they just read (way to time consuming). You would see if you allowed comments right under every news story that your online visitation /hits will double within 2 years as you will get many readers to keep coming back to comment and voice their opinion. The TU is behind the 8-ball on this but its good to know you may allow this in 2009.

Monica, I had hoped the TU would at least be willing to listen to suggestions from subscribers. I guess not. That’s fine, but please spare me the attitude.

All I’m saying is those of us on the “other side of the river” would like to see a little more news from Rensselaer county. It’s really not an unreasonable request. You have a bureau and two or three reporters here, right? No one expects every little thing to make it into the paper, but I think a “big” Albany daily should be counted on to get at least one story out of a fairly populated neighboring county, every day.

Or, you can take a step back and look at how much the paper is about (setting Albany aside) only Colonie, Saratoga, and Schenectady, and how little there is from other local communities—and I’m not talking the Hilltowns. It might surprise you.

Kyle, thanks for the heads-up on the bias thing, but it is you my friend who misses the point. There is no such thing as “unbiased” news. We’re all human beings, journalists too and they all bring their own perspectives and views to the table. There’s never been, and never will be, completely unbiased news, so stop holding your breath! Journalists try to be fair and to report the truth. I think the vast majority do that, and I also think it’s the most you can expect them to do.

You want to see bias? See my point above about which communities get covered in the TU, and which don’t. I happen to think this geographic bias is particularly harmful, which is why I am writing here…in the hopes the TU will stop and think, and perhaps consider how it covers the news. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t hold my breath.

I suppose that some bias may not be avoidable. My biggest complaint has not been bias per se but in how some stories are presented. I have seen a lot of stories sourced from other papers (NY, LAT, Boston Globe, etc). That’s fine, but what I don’t understand is when they get truncated or bits and pieces are put together. Over the years I have seen stories in the TU where if you go to the original paper, the same story is twice as long. On occasion I’ve seen where the second (omitted) half changes the context of the first half. I don’t understand why, if another source is going to be used (which is understandable), the entire piece is not used.

15. “I don’t understand why, if another source is going to be used (which is understandable), the entire piece is not used.”

That’s just the T-U “filtering” to “serve you better.” If it wasn’t in there, then, heck, you probably didn’t really need to know. Right? Right.

(Seriously, BL, that is the main reason I’ll gouge out my eyes before I subscribe. The editing of material from other news sources is just a train wreck of a mess. While irksome, compression is less of a problem than lack of comprehension, by copy editors, presumably, though perhaps the T-U has been compelled by circumstances to outsource that job to a distant land where English is an exotic tongue — to, uh, better serve the reader, no doubt.)

I guess what would help me would be a disclaimer that says only a part of the original story is being published by the TU. The reader does not get the chance to know (without reading the NYT, etc) that the whole story is not there.

The other thing that would bother me is if important clarifications or flavor is cut off when the story is truncated. I get the feeling that the cut-off is arbitrary, perhaps based upon length, but if the story’s tenor changes by the knife, then I think it’s a problem.

I think one of the first times I noticed the practice was way back during the Clinton impeachment hearings. The TU editorial page was heavily pro-Clinton no matter what/anti-Senate investigation. That’s fine on the editorial page. There was a story on the front page which was taken from the NYT. The story had to deal with one of the Senate hearings. I believe it was about the questioning of Louis Freeh and the Repubs closed the hearing while Freeh was being grilled by adversarial Dems. The article in the TU left it at that and it appeared that this was some novel Repub trick to quash a line of questioning. However, when you go to the original NYT story, right after the cut it said something to the effect of the tactic being a common procedural move used by panel chairs of both parties for streamlining purposes. To me, that gave a (perhaps) unintended bias in the TU version that was cleareed up when the whole story was presented.

and why do I get big sections of semi-blank pages? Monday was awful!!
Thre were numerous pages that looked like something had been put over parts of pages.

From Monica: The daily TV grid was removed. All listings are in Sunday’s TV magazine. If you get a bad copy, you should call Circulation at 518-454-5454 to get a new one delivered. We don’t intend to sell what we call “spoils” – that’s a mistake.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the latest major newspaper to face the prospect of going out of business:

Hearst Corp. put Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, up for sale Friday, saying that if it can’t find a buyer in the next 60 days, the paper will close or continue to exist only on the Internet.

“These options include a move to a digital only operation with a greatly reduced staff, or a complete shutdown of all operations,” Hearst, the P-I’s parent company, said in a statement. “In no case will Hearst continue to publish the P-I in printed form following the conclusion of this process.”

Maybe a conservative group could buy the paper and continue to operate it. It would be interesting to see whether a metropolitan daily newspaper would fare any better if cleansed of liberal bias.

I would like to add a comment to my previous comment re the television section and the reply that it repeats the sunday section: does anyone really keep that large amount of verbage just to find out what’s on tonite? How about a small, concise pullout with just the facts instead, then I’d keep that and not mind the missing daily one.
thanks again for listening

The size/shape of the Sunday TV guide is cumbersome. I much preferred the smaller version. Also, sometimes the tv listings change and the Sunday listing is not up to speed. Sometimes a show is listed as N when it isn’t or R when it is new. This is upsetting to those of us who depend on the tv for most of our entertainment.

BTW, the TU is VERY liberal – both in the news section and on the Op/Ed pages. No “fair and balanced” from the TU! And you wonder why subscription numbers are down? We’d love to go to an alternative newspaper, but there are none to speak of.

The daily TU had been priced at $.50, but for a short while, in faint print next to that price was “$.75 in outlying areas.” Before I could figure out what constituted an “outlying area,” the (newsstand) price jumped to $.75.

Now the same seems to be happening to the Sunday edition. For at least the past several weeks it has been priced at $2.00, but “$2.50 in outlying areas.”

Is the lightweight, advertising-bloated Sunday edition about to jump to $2.50?